June 2014

2014-15 Sneak Peek

From Praetorius to Bach and Telemann, our 13th season features more of the greatest baroque music you have ever heard, with our own fabulous musicians and a top-flight line-up of singers.

Five programs in Chestnut Hill, Center City and at the Kimmel Center:

October: Tempesta sings Bach & Praetorius

December: Tempesta plays 2 Bach’s & Telemann

March: Tempesta plays Purcell & Charpentier

April: Tempesta sings Clérambault & Bernier

June: Tempesta plays Rameau & Leclair

…plus a special performance of Messiah at Christmas time with Julianne Baird and the Brandywine Singers.

See the entire season and get your Season Pass tickets now.

June 7th: Season Finale at Kimmel Center

Join Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra Tempesta di Mare on June 7th at The Kimmel Center for our final program of the season!

Crackling flames, whipping winds, churning rivers and the world emerging from chaos all make appearances in incidental music from an opera by Marin Marais, a ballet by Jean-Féry Rebel, and an orchestral suite by Telemann.

New CD Release: Bach Six Trio Sonatas

Bach compiled his set of six trio sonatas for organ during the late 1720s. They are thought to have been put together as training material for Bach’s son Wilhelm Friedemann and can be grouped among other pedagogical keyboard collections such as the Inventions and the Well-Tempered Clavier. They are unique, however, in transferring the typical trio sonata texture, a popular style normally played by ensemble, to a single instrument. In Bach’s originals the right and left hands take the top two parts while the pedals perform the bass line. The first movement of Sonata No. 4 was originally composed for ensemble and the unique formal and stylistic characteristics of the collection suggest that other movements, too, started life away from the organ.

Taking this on board, we have re-imagined these works in arrangements for chamber ensemble, using scorings typically adopted in the performance of trio sonatas in Bach’s time from our full ensemble of six players to an intimate harpsichord-lute duet. Bach was himself a serial adapter and re-arranger of his own works and this recording takes on his understanding of the musical work as a fluid entity, able to assume as many forms as there are purposes for them.

This recording will become another instant Tempesta classic when it hits the shelves in early June 2014. So get your copy today!